Page 358 - The snake's pass

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346 THE snake's pass.
where once the house had been which Murdock took from
Joyce, and so met his doom. Here there was a great
pool of water—and indeed all throughout the ravine were
places where the stream broadened into deep pools, and
again into shallow pools where it ran over the solid bed
of rock. As we passed up, Dick hazarded an expla-
nation or a theory :
" Do you know it seems to me that this ravine or
valley was once before just as it is now. The stream ran
down it and out at the Shleenanaher just as it does now.
Then by some landslips, or a series of them, or by a
falling tree, the passage became blocked, and the hollow
became a lake, and its edges grew rank with boggy
growth; and then, from one cause and another—the
falling in of the sides, or the rush of rain storms carrying
down the detritus of the mountain, and perpetually wash-
ing down particles of clay from the higher levels—the
lake became choked up ; and then the lighter matter
floated to the top, and by time and vegetable growth
became combined. And so the whole mass grew co-
hesive and floated on the water and slime below. This
may have occurred more than once. Nay, moreover,
sections of the bog may have become segregated or
separated by some similarity of condition affecting its
parts, or by some formation of the ground, as by the
valley narrowing in parts between walls of rock so that
the passage could be easily choked. And so, solid earth
formed to be again softened and demoralized by the
later mingling with the less solid mass above it. It is